From the author of

On a trip to Australia several years ago, we were driving through downtown
Sydney looking for a place to park. We knew our destination, a well-recommended
seafood restaurant serving one of my favorite dishesabalone.
Unfortunately, there was quite a bit of new construction going on in the area,
and we were continually confronted with "No Parking" signs. Site after
site admonished us with No Parking, No Parking, No Parkinguntil we reached
the end of the street we were looking to park on and saw a sign that read
"Absolutely No Parking."

Though Aussies and Americans speak the same language, we wondered if we were
misunderstanding something, and figured the other signs were just suggestions.
We considered parking next to the No Parking signs but then thought better of
it. After all, cultural differences have created many an embarrassing situation
for touristsand businesses too.

Here are some examples.

Speak English, Why Don'tcha?

You've probably heard the story (whether true or just a business myth)
about the marketing faux pas General Motors made when they introduced the
Chevrolet Nova in South America. GM was apparently unaware that "no
va" means "it won't go." After the company figured out why
it wasn't selling any cars, it renamed the car in its Spanish markets to
the Caribe.

There were many other marketing mistakes performed by other U.S. companies
due to misunderstandings with the local language. Take for example
McDonald's and Coca-Cola. You might think that these two companies, with
their far-flung international experience, would not find themselves committing
marketing hara-kiribut you'd be mistaken. When McDonald's
launched its popular Big Mac Attack ads in Canada as well as the U.S., there
arose one problem. In Canada, "Big Mac" is slang for "large
breasts." Not an image McDonald's wanted to project for their
sandwich. And when the name Coca-Cola in China was first rendered as
Ke-kou-ke-la by local marketers, the Coke folks didn't discover until after
thousands of signs had been printed that the phrase means "bite the wax
tadpole" or "female horse stuffed with wax," depending on the
dialect. Not very thirst-quenching, right?

And one of my favorite marketing faux pas is from chicken-man Frank Perdue.
His well-known slogan, "It takes a tough man to make a tender
chicken," got terribly mangled in a Spanish translation. A photo of Perdue
with one of his birds appeared on billboards all over Mexico with a caption that
explained "It takes a hard man to make a chicken aroused."